Virginia Moreno
Virginia is a Chilean Biologist who has recently completed her MSc in Conservation Biology at Massey University, Auckland. She has conducted research in quite different areas, including developmental biology of zebra fish, biogeography of liverworts and behaviour of the South American sun-star. However, more recently what interested her the most is how science can help improve the state of the world, and aid in the conservation of its ecosystems.
The title of her thesis was “Conservation issues for Hochstetter’s frog (
Leiopelma hochstetteri): Monitoring techniques and chytridiomycosis prevalence in the Auckland Region”. Her thesis investigated correlations between two different monitoring techniques: site occupancy and visual estimation surveys (relative abundance). While doing this also be conducted disease (chytridiomycosis) surveys in the two selected study populations: Waitakere Ranges and Great Barrier Island. As an outcome of her research she collected information on the population structure, health, relative abundance, site-occupancy and detection probability estimates for this species in both locations, as well as setting up a long-term site occupancy monitoring in the Waitakere Ranges (in collaboration with Auckland Regional Council).
Virginia's supervisors were Dianne Brunton (Massey University) and Matt Baber (ARC).
